


In Plain Sight

by spiffycups



Category: Baahubali (Movies)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Magic AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 09:32:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13361730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiffycups/pseuds/spiffycups
Summary: Because there isn't already an adequate number of bad decisions in canon, I'm adding magic to the mix. I expect chaos, and possibly some fighting.





	In Plain Sight

The river was off limits downstream. Guards would patrol the riverbank, old sturdy time-worn men with their fluid shields and glittering armour that was only partly visible no matter where you stood and looked at them. They would stop everyone who tried to go past the last banyans. Once a washerwoman had let a blouse float in the current but they had forced her to let it go, and forbade her from diving in after the silk cloth. Sivagami remembered the woman's downcast face as she watched the minister's outfit float farther away. 

At twelve years old, and with only half-audible murmurs of stories, she took it upon herself to try to find out. They wouldn't speak of it. It didn't help that a little girl was asking questions. More times than not, the adults pretended not to have heard her. It frustrated Sivagami to no end to not get any answers to her questions.

It was thus entirely by accident that she met the mermaids.

She was walking past the riverbank carrying three baskets of brass dolls. The sun blinded her steps as did the big baskets in her hands, and she tried to remember where the rocks were, but tripped and fell, upturning the dolls into the coursing river. Thankfully it was a gentle current so she quickly reached in and grabbed most of them. She worried about the two that she could not save, watching them go under the glimmering water. She ran to the nearest protruding rock where the washerfolk punished the dirt out of the clothes, and stood on the edge of the large boulder, eyes wide, searching for the dolls she knew would come down with the current. 

Minutes passed and no metal showed from beneath the water. The boulder was the last point on the river where you could safely get into the water. A hundred feet on, the guards would materialise out of nowhere to stop your path with their heavy swords drawn. Sivagami gingerly put one hand into the water, trying to feel where the water shallowed into mud. It was only three feet in depth. Betting she could safely walk, she pulled off the rope tied around the baskets and secured herself to the boulder, and began to walk into the water. It stretched out for twenty feet, strong coir holding tight against the soft current. She thought she spotted the gold-brown doll just a foot in front of her and leaped full-bodied into the river, grabbing blindly even as she closed her eyes inside the water.

Standing up with the metal in hand, she shook her head and opened her eyes to find that the brown was not her delivery of dolls but rather the tail-end of a sputtering mermaid who was dangling upside down. Too surprised to shout, and too well-mannered to drop her right back into the water, Sivagami grasped her with both hands and set her right side up, holding her under the armpits as she lowered her into the river again.

"Hello, I'm Sivagami." she whispered, even though there was no one to overhear them for miles around.

The mermaid looked suspicious and wary, nodding hesitantly.

"What's your name?" she tried further.

"Kshoja." murmured the girl.

"Your name feels like water in my mouth." blurted out Sivagami, smiling. She hadn't let go of the girl yet, who was starting to visibly pale under the hot sun and the oxygenated air.

"Leave me." Kshoja squirmed, wriggling under her firm grasp.

"I'm sorry for catching you. I was only trying to catch my doll!" Sivagami felt compelled to explain, and apologised. Letting go with one hand, she touched her own heart and touched her fingers to Kshoja's heart. "I didn't mean to hurt you. Are you hurt?"

"Heat- tired-" Kshoja struggled to breathe, starting to go limp.

Sivagami let go in alarm, letting the girl fall backwards into the water, where her face regained some of its vitality and vigour. She stood waist-deep in the water, staring curiously at Kshoja. She smiled with candor at Kshoja's curious gaze, overcome newly with shyness. The mermaid resurfaced, neck inside the water, gills flapping synchronously with the current. 

They spoke for hours, telling each other about families and weather and sound, and what games they liked to play.

"I've never had a friend before." said Kshoja.

"I've only had human friends before." said Sivagami.

"Come back again and see me." It was a question phrased as a statement, and Sivagami knew how to speak the language of the have-nots, so she smiled and teased, "Only if you don't faint again".

They met under cover of moonlight, always in the spot just before the washing boulder. The women thought the child sat by the river and sang songs, for all merfolk conversation sounds musical to humans, and Sivagami never told anyone about her friend.

By the end of a year, Kshoja had introduced her to her family, her community of merpeople, and her friends the nurmeegas, the snakes and the shape-shifting amphibians. It was a whole year when Sivagami finally asked the big question.

"Can I do magic too?" 

Kshoja smiled, scales glinting and teeth gleaming under the setting sun. "Of course. You humans have tremendous power, but you have forgotten how to use it. You can remember your magic, and make it your power, to use and dispense, as you like."

And Sivagami, for all her innocence and friendliness, would always choose power over everything else.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, would you leave a comment? :)


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